Wilson would make an impact right away, scoring in only his second NHL shift on his first shot in his first game, against Bob Froese of the Philadelphia Flyers. He would finish the season with the Flames, and the next season he would score seventy-two points as a rookie. He won the Rookie of the Month award for October 1984. Wilson was a solid contributor for the Flames until he was traded to the Hartford Whalers in the middle of the 1987–88 season. A little less than a year later, he was traded again, this time to the New York Rangers. He finished the season on a tear, scoring fifty-five points in the forty-one games he played in 1988–89 for the Rangers. Wilson played one more season with them, before being traded back to the Whalers. He would only play forty-five games with the Whalers in 1990–91 before being traded back to the Flames, where he would play a few more seasons before retiring in 1992–93 because of a knee injury. Wilson came out of retirement in 1996–97 to play seven games for the Manitoba Moose of the IHL, the only time he would ever play in the minor leagues.